Ammonia Energy Gains Recognition from U.S. Department of Energy

Ammonia Energy Anniversary Issue: a “top five” development in economic implementation

In the last 12 months …

Ammonia energy has gained recognition from the United States Department of Energy, in both bottom-up and top-down programs. This establishes ammonia energy in the world’s largest economy as a legitimate target for both public- and private-sector investment.

[email protected] and REFUEL

A year ago, the U.S. did not seem to have any federally supported activity in ammonia energy at all. The U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program had announced its REFUEL funding opportunity in April 2016, but the scope of the program was broad, covering all liquid fuels that could be produced “from air and water using renewable energy,” including those with carbon backbones. That same month, representatives of the United States’ national laboratories unveiled the [email protected] program, the goal of which is to explore the potential for wide-scale hydrogen production and utilization. However, ammonia was included in the program scope only as a commodity whose production generated CO2 emissions.

Click to learn more. The U.S. vision for a hydrogen economy. Source: [email protected] program, U.S. Department of Energy

The situation started to change in December 2016 when ARPA-E released its list of awardees.  Thirteen of the 16 successful proponents are groups focused on ammonia-related technology.

Then, in May 2017, the [email protected] leaders gave the NH3 Fuel Association the opportunity to send a speaker to a workshop on the program’s implementation roadmap. The speaker, Steve Szymanski, Director of Business Development at NH3 Fuel Association sponsor Proton On-Site (now Nel Hydrogen), was able to convey the relevance of ammonia energy to the [email protected] initiative, and to open the door for further contacts between [email protected] and the ammonia energy community.

Ammonia Energy reporting

A year in review

To mark the first anniversary of Ammonia Energy, we reviewed the most important developments from the last 12 months. This “top ten” list spans two areas: five are technology advances that will arguably produce the most important opportunities for ammonia energy, and five are economic implementation steps that are arguably the most significant moves toward real-world deployment.

Technology advancement:

Economic implementation:

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Hydrofuel Inc.

Having the research that proves beyond any doubt that ammonia works in virtually every transportation and industrial application better than fossil fuels and in some instances better than renewable energy is very important.

Comprehensive Evaluation of NH3 Production and Utilization Options for Clean Energy Applications
http://www.nh3fuel.com/images/documents/2017-03-25 – MITACS-Final-Report-P3-IT08015.pdf